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They may be a normal encounter during the course of the story, in which case you'll unlock them just by playing through the story, or they'll be a type of Bonus Boss, in which case you'll have to track them down before you can fight them.

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It goes without saying that in cases where this trope doesn't apply, people generally REALLY wish it did. Especially way back in the glory days of arcade gaming, unlocking hidden characters for use in regular gameplay was the holy grail for gamers, and so rumor mills kept spewing out one absurd theory after another as to how to make this trope happen. Developers never outright denied that it couldn't in their games because there was too much money to be made in allowing the rumors to swirl.

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Examples:

The action-game-with-RPG elements -and-optional-hentai-scenes, 最強御主人様!-Mighty My Master- does this twice, once with the demoness Velda, whom is advertised as playable, and then with Goddess Yect as a game clear bonus.

In Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, you can tranquillize Python and add him to your roster of playable characters, complete with unique nitrogen grenades. Also, Cunningham and Gene who sport a laser and throwing knives respectively.

The two recurring bosses in Sengoku 3 are playable after the game's halfway point, and they retain all of their strength and powers.

In the NES version of Double Dragon III at least, the bosses of the China and Japan levels join your party once defeated. They can be swapped in and out tag-team style, and are very useful for countering certain enemies.

The Aliens can be obtained as playable character once you defeated them on their UFO.

In fact, most characters can be obtained after completing certain levels, or whole map as certain characters, this includes Insane Mode.

The Necromancer is a special case, in Xbox 360 version, he's available as Downloadable Content, but for PS3 and PC version, you have to defeat the boss of Industrial Factory in Insane Mode to unlock him.

Streets of Rage 3 offers this for beating the first boss, Shiva (though a code is required). It can get crazy in the end: If you don't save the hostage in stage 6, you may possibly fight yourself on the final stage.

This is also the case with Roo, the boxing kangaroo. If you beat the trainer without beating Roo first (difficult,since the trainer has about three times as many hitpoints) than Roo runs off and becomes a playable character. This is hinted at, by the fact that the trainer will periodically whip Roo.

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In the first two games as well as Tekken 4, each character has a specific mini-boss who is unlocked after beating the game with said character. However, the character you unlock is determined by whoever you beat the game as, and not the actual defeating of the mini-boss. For example, in Tekken 2, Law's mini-boss is Baek, but if you lose to the Final Boss and beat the game as another character, you won't unlock Baek, but another mini-boss.

Tekken 3, Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken 5 ditch the system completely, and characters are unlocked in a fixed order.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 applies this to its only unlockable character: the Final Boss Unknown. Defeat her in Arcade mode and she will be unlocked.

Tekken 6 both plays the trope straight and averts it:

In regular gameplay, all characters are available right off the bat, and you don't need to unlock anyone.

In Scenario Campaign mode, you can only play as Lars or Alisa at first. Upon beating the first stage, you can unlock one character of your choice, and the remaining characters must be unlocked by defeating them as bosses in the other stages.

Some games in the Soul Series use this system, though not all of them. For example, in Soul Calibur, you unlock characters in a fixed order, but in Soul Calibur II, characters can be unlocked by defeating them in Weapon Master mode.

Super Smash Bros. uses this system. Meet certain conditions, and a fight against an unlockable character will start. Defeat them, and you'll unlock them.

Note that Brawl's Adventure Mode mostly averts this — aside from Jigglypuff, Wolf, and Toon Link (all of whom only appear after the game is cleared), none of the secret characters were required to be fought storywise to get unlocked, though both Mr. Game & Watch and Lucario play with this; Mr. Game & Watch turns into Duon moments after he first appears and you fight him in that form, and when Meta Knight has a duel with Lucario when the latter is introduced, the player may choose to control Lucario instead.

The King of Fighters XI has five sub-bosses (four from other SNK games and Adelheid) who are unlocked by meeting their requirements (or not meeting any, for Adelheid) and then defeating them. The home version's challenges allow the unlocking of Shion, Magaki, and several other characters when completed; for Shion, Magaki, Tung, EX Kyo, and Mr. Big, this is by defeating them. For Hotaru, Robert, Mai, and Geese, however, it's inverted; you control them for the challenges, so Victory Means Playable.

In order to unlock Raiden in Mortal Kombat: Deception, you have to fight and beat him in the Orderrealm after beating Konquest Mode. Doubles as something of a Guide Dang It!, in that the fight with Raiden is available to you before this as well, but with a different, lesser reward.

Knuckles and Gamma in Sonic Adventure are Meet Means Playable. It just so happens that your first run-in with Knuckles is a battle. Your first run-in with Gamma might be a battle, but if you switch to Amy's or Knuckles's stories before encountering him with Sonic or Tails and get to one of the points in those stories where Gamma appears (the prison scene with Amy, or returning to the main island from the Master Emerald altar with Knuckles), his story will be unlocked before you battle him.

Space Station Silicon Valley takes this to the extreme in the sense that it's a central game mechanic. Basically, you're the 3D platforming equivalent of a Ditto Fighter, and to play as enemies, you can kill them and take their bodies. To boot, you even start each level already possessing an enemy.

This is the premise of Skylanders: Trap Team: villains you've defeated can be imprisoned in a Trap corresponding to their element, then summoned as a powerful and Nigh Invulnerable playable character until their time expires and the Trap needs to recharge.

In a similar vein, Skylanders: SuperChargers has three Expansion Packs that each let you race against villains that you can add to your roster when defeated. The only villain not unlocked this way is Kaos, who requires the trophy bundled with the Dark Edition of the game.

In Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Sly must defeat Penelope (as the Black Baron) and the Panda King in boss battles before they both become playable and join the Cooper Gang.

In Mega Man Powered Up, defeating the Robot Masters using only the Mega Buster makes them playable, the excuse being that doing so simply damages them rather than outright destroy.

Puzzle Game

Panel de Pon's story mode lets you select new characters as you defeat them (though it's mostly a cosmetic change...the only difference is the color of garbage bricks you dump on your opponent).

In Dr. Mario 64, clearing the story mode on Normal or higher without using a continue gives you one final match against either Metal Mario or Vampire Wario after the final boss, and beating them (still without using a continue on them) will unlock them for multiplayer.

In Wrecking Crew '98, every character who isn't Mario gets unlocked by defeating them, except for Peach and Luigi, who appear only in the ending.

Racing Game

All of the unlockable characters except Dr. Robotnik and Super Sonic in Sonic R.

Plenty of racing games. Like Burnout. Warning- do not expect the cars to be anywhere near that fast when you control them.

Chocobo Racing's story mode has you competing against a new character in each race; after beating them you can use them in any subsequent story mode races. In addition, beating the game twice unlocks a hidden course where you race Squall, who becomes playable outside of story mode after you beat him.

In Need for Speed: Most Wanted, you need to defeat a boss to make his or her car available on the car shop. If you're lucky, you can get the pink slip to that boss car, thus getting it free.

Then in the 2012 Most Wanted, shutting down a driver on the most wanted list unlocks their car to drive.

The same thing in Blur. Defeating a boss unlock the normal version of the car as well as the boss version.

Beating circuit champions in LEGO Racers unlocks new minifig parts, chassis, and bricks, among them the parts required to build an exact copy of that circuit champion.

Carmageddon runs on a very complicated and obscure "stealworthy" system for you to get different cars. From II and onwards, it's far simplified in that you can just buy out the opponents that were wasted, as long as you have the required cash of course.

Played with in a way in Persona 4, where defeating a person's Shadow causes that person to join you. Subsequently subverted in the same game, when Mitsuo Kubo's Shadow is defeated, he does not join you because he doesn't accept his Shadow. Not to mention that he's an admitted murderer and is sent to prison shortly after being rescued.

In Devil Survivor, upon activating a COMP's Demon Summoning Program, a demon will come out to fight the user. Should the user emerge victorious, said demon will join the user's demon stock. This only applies to the first demon summoned by the Demon Summoning Program; the player will have to obtain other demons through the Auction or by fusion. Some specific Demons still make use of this trope, however. Several missions in the second game feature optional Demon bosses that will be unlocked for fusion upon defeat. Humorously, this rule also applies to Demons killed in scripted cutscenes (such as Kama in the second game).

Mega Man Battle Network has this in the 5th game. You need to defeat certain Navis before you can control them during Liberation Missions.

A much less useful version also appears in the 6th game (though there are a few missions and one boss which must be fought by people you defeated). Also, 4-6 halfway have this through a second track of Power Copying—once you beat certain bosses, you can do the Fusion Dance with them in any battle after that point (including rematches against that same boss).

In Endless Frontier, Reiji and Xiaomu and the Personal Troopers join your group after fighting them as bosses. With the mechs however, that takes a couple tries first.

In Jade Empire, you don't get to play as the Black Whirlwind for long, but when you first encounter him, he attacks you. Then, later, during the Siege of Dirge, you play as Whirlwind for a period. This also happens with Silk Fox, but that part can also be taken while playing as Dawn Star instead (Player's choice). There's also an optional subplot where you can opt to allow the Black Whirlwind (under your control) to duel with Kai Lan the Serpant.

Sheena and Regal of Tales of Symphonia will each fight against the party (Sheena does it twice) before joining you.

Not quite the same meaning of "playable", but each summon spirit in the game must be defeated in battle before Sheena can establish the pact to call on them.

Subverted in Chrono Trigger where you must decline a fight with Magus in order to have him join your party.

Sarevok from Baldur's Gate. But he's not exactly a standard example, as two entire games pass between the point where you kill him and the point where he can join you (unless you count killing him a 2nd time immediately before the expansion begins).

This isn't always the case in the original Geneforge, but it happens a lot in an indirect fashion. Rather than directly recruiting Monster Allies, you use magical canisters to learn how to create them out of thin air, and quite a few canisters are guarded by the same type of monster they teach you how to make.

Each Esper of Final Fantasy XII and Eidolon of Final Fantasy XIII must be fought before they can be used, though in both cases they're not playable so much as summonable party members.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 allows most monsters to be recruited after defeat, at which point they can be customized, leveled, and used in battle as a third party member.

In Jay's Journey, Puff and Shade both join after a boss fight (Puff's can be lost a la Hopeless Boss Fight, though, as the misunderstanding is sorted out either way.)

In Recettear, several of the potential adventurers start as the final bosses of the various dungeons that you must first defeat in order to get them to work for you.

In Dragon Age: Origins, defeating Zevran and much later Loghain is immediately followed by opportunities to recruit them into the party.

This is the entire point of the flash game "Great Dungeon in the Sky". Any enemy you defeat can be played as, ranging from bosses to the chicken.

Subverted in Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, where the party clearly expects their Stealth MentorGhaleon to join them after his last boss battle. Unfortunately, he's kept alive by the power of the Big Bad, so now that it's clear that he's a traitor he fades away.Fridge Logic makes that a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!, because there's only one way the Big Bad could have found out just then from them saying that they knew he was helping them all along and trying to recruit him instead of playing along.

In Knights of the Old Republic, when you first meet Juhani, she's fallen to the dark side and will attack you. You have to fight her to survive, and once you've done a certain amount of damage she will yield. At that point you can either kill her or talk her into abandoning the dark side and going back to the Jedi enclave. If you choose the latter, she will join your party shortly after.

The second game has Visas Marr, who you can kill or spare. If you spare her, she joins the party.

Pretty much all the characters in Shining the Holy Ark are unlockable after defeating them. The first "boss" is Rodi and soon after he's one of the three main characters. Lisa and Basso are tasked to kill the group but join up with them after a failed attempt and getting lost in a Haunted House. Forte after been missing from your party since the beginning of the game part of a boss fight (although you're actually fighting a demon that's possessing him). You have to fight Doyle at some point, he then goes off to hide and if you find him he'll join you.

Shining Force III is an odd one because of the fact the game is split into three different games and what you do in one affects the other. In the case of Spiral you must defeat her once in Scenario 1, then avoid killing her in the second battle, so you can recruit her in Scenario 2.

Almost every Pokémon you can train has to be defeated and captured in a Pokeball before you can actually start training it. It is a subversion, however, in that the Pokémon mustn't be actually defeated, just weakened or caught in a lucky try.

Final Fantasy VI has Umaro, who will join you if you defeat him as a boss and Mog is in your party.

In Final Fantasy X, Tidus battles Yuna's guardian Kimahri in a mandatory boss fight, after which Kimahri becomes a playable party member.

Pirate101 lets the player hire some bosses to join their crew after they have been defeated.

Tales of Maj'Eyal opens a number of birth options (races, classes and talent trees) by defeating someone of their ilk. The earliest example is almost invariably the Cursed class, unlocked by killing Ben Cruthdar in the Lumberjack Village north of Last Hope.

The majority of the party members in Xenogears have to be fought before they join the party. If you want to get technical, this includes the main character. On top of that, the ultimate gear of the game, the titular Xenogears, has to be fought before it can be used. One of the game's main antagonists, Ramsus, was also supposed to be this, but then the budget ran out.

The World Ends with You: You fight Beat in week 2 before he becomes your partner in week 3. Subverted though, as you don't actually get to beat him until New Game+, as the battle ends automatically after a short amount of time. Double Subverted as you can beat him in such a short amount of time if your stats are good enough and the trends are in your favor, as thisLet's Play shows.

Mario Golf has a Get Character mode specifically for this. The sequel, Toadstool Tour has you defeat characters to get the "star" version of that character, which shoot further with a smaller sweet spot.

In the Challenge Mode of Mario Super Sluggers, characters will challenge you with missions, and if you complete them, they will join your team.

Jet Set Radio Future takes this to the extreme; the only characters that can't be unlocked are DJ Professor K, the boss characters and the police. It should be noted that this doesn't include the robot counterparts to the police, the robot bosses or the Big Bad himself, which leaves about four characters who can't be played by beating them and their challenges.

In the 2011 edition of WWE Smackdown Vs Raw, the main roster characters who are unlocked via Universe mode must first be battled after fulfilling the unlock requirements. When this happens, Vince Mcmahon appears and tells the wrestler youre playing as they have another opponent to face before revealing the unlockable wrestler.

Shoot-Em-Up

The smartphone ports of DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu / DoDonPachi Resurrection allows you to unlock Hibachi as a playable character in the smartphone-exclusive arrange mode by completing the first loop and the special second loop, said arrange mode on Normal difficulty or higher and with one credit. This includes defeating Hibachi, who waits at the end of the special second loop. You can also use a cheat code to unlock Hibachi, but the effect will wear off upon exiting the game, requiring you to input the code again every time you want to unlock Hibachi again, while the 2-loop-clear method unlocks it permanently.

Strategy Game

In Kessen III, many (if not most) optional officers can be recruited this way.

In Infectonator!: World Domination, you get the enemy hero units as your own after your zombies kill them. Justified because you just zombified them!

In Total War, after Medieval, you could unlock certain factions by beating them. Alternatively, winning a campaign, long or short, unlocked the entire set, except for some factions who weren't playable. In Medieval 2, you only started with five factions, and had to unlock the other factions (and there were a lot of them) entirely by beating that faction or winning the Grand Campaign. Kind of hard to unlock the Egyptians when you were the English half a map away from them.

In Warlords Battlecry 2, when you play on the Campaign Map initially you control armies from the same race with your hero, but by taking over enemy capitals you can control armies from those capitals.

In the Disgaea series, any monster class that isn't in your party from the start must be defeated once before it can be used. There are two ways to do this:

The more common way is to defeat that monster class multiple times and then create a character with mana points (earned by each character for defeating others) - the more you defeat, the cheaper the cost (to a point).

The riskier but faster way is, while you're in a battle, to throw an enemy monster into your base panel, where all your characters not currently participating in the battle will attempt to subdue it. If they're successful, that monster will join your team in future fights.

Also from the Disgaea series, some regular bosses join your party after you defeat them. Early examples from the first game include Flonne in chapter 2 and Hoggmeiser in chapter 3.

It's not exactly an unlock but Peasants in Cossacks will often change sides if there are no friendly soldiers around to protect them from nearby enemies. Anything they build has the style and function of their former faction so is a way of getting other factions special troops to fight for you. Often used to obtain archers as, although they are outmoded as warriors in this pike and musket era game, they are useful for destroying things without using up your gunpowder.

Defeating Prince Langrey in the A route of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume puts him in your party immediately after. His lowered stats are justified as well, since you just beat him to near death moments ago.

In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, swordfighter Chulainn is the final arena boss of Chapter 2. Clear the arena and he'll join your side (with a unit of his promoted class replacing him as the final boss).

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance has Muarim and Shinon. Muarim is simple enough, but Shinon involves talking to him with Rolf and beating him with Ike.

In Fire Emblem Awakening, SpotPass characters Walhart and Priam will join your ranks if you defeat them. Priam can be taken down by anyone but Chrom has to be the one to fight Walhart.

Fire Emblem Fates has several characters fulfill this depending on the route you choose.

In Birthright, you have to beat up Silas and Shura before they join you.

In Conquest, you have to beat up Kaze and Shura before they join you.

In Revelation, you have to beat up Hayato, Camilla, Selena, Beruka, and Silas before they join you.

In the paralogues, you have to beat up Percy and Nina before they join you.

Wide Open Sandbox

The character New Goblin is avaliable to play in Spider-Man 3 (Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 consoles) during the final mission in the game in a boss fight against Sandman. Of course, once you have gone through battling him and having him unlocked on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, you can experience a free roam gameplay, but only for crime fighting and racing across New York City, no story missions.

In the X-Universe series, pilots of fighter-class ships and freighters would sometimes bail when critically damaged in order to save their butts. The player can then exit their own ship in a spacesuit, and claim the ship to add to their fleet (or to pilot it themselves). This is the only way to acquire Pirate, Xenon, and Kha'ak ships. Unfortunately, unless outside of cheats, it's impossible to acquire AGI Task Force fighters in gameplay because of their AI refusing to bail out their shipand would rather go down with it even after peddling it with continuous Cherry Tapping after their shields are out. X3: Terran Conflict added marine boarding, allowing the player to steal capital ships after draining their shields and killing the crew with a squadron of marines. By using the Player Headquarters, the player can then reverse-engineer captured ships to put them in mass production.

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